When My Son Died

When My Son Died

Kenn Pitawanakwat

When My Son Died

Copyright ©2015 by Kenn Pitawanakwat

Front cover illustration from painting by Jordan Quequish

Back cover photos by Allan Joyner and Karen Meawasige

Typesetting and e-book production by Chris Bell

Atthis Arts LLC, www.atthisarts.com

Editorial services by Emily Williamson

Chrysalis Editorian, www.chrysaliseditorial.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author except where permitted by law.

ISBN 978-0-9949648-1-6

Visit the author at www.kennpitawanakwat.com

My life and this project could not have been possible without the unerring and continuous support from my wife Lorraine - there when I first introduced Shannon as a child. It has been love since then.

You were there Lorraine to help bring my boy home. You were there when they wheeled him out to his final resting place. And you are still there as I go through my breakdowns-never judging-ever accepting.

Miigwetch Lorraine Miigwetch, your husband who can never repay, Kenn.

To our son Dave who was there in spirit at the wake - so torn between academics and duty. Son, Shannon would not want you to fail in your studies. Miigwetch for doing so well in university. Shannon is proud of you. You made the right choice. Teresa and Ben, continue to follow your dreams. Miigwetch, Merci for making it home in one giant drive from Montreal to Serpent River in time for closing the casket.

Angie, Miigwetch for caring for me and just being there. Brian, Miigwetch for being there for my daughter. Knowing you are still there for her gives me rest and peace of mind.

Catherine and Chelsea, you are now my daughters. I need you more than you need me. Be that as it may, I will do my best to be a papa and a grandpa. Again, I wish I was there for you when you were as tiny as your dad, the day we brought him home. You are my babies. And always you shall be. Me, You, Shannon. We are one.

Karen. What can I say? No amount of words will heal. As parents, we know the indescribable pain of losing our child. I will always love you. Shannon is looking out for us. He is never far away. All we got to do is ask him to help us.

Kenn Pitawanakwat

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

People to Thank

To Shannon Meawasige

A Letter to You

NNA-NA-BOZHO

NNGII-BII-DAA-JIM (The Foretelling)

GAA-BI-JI-GIING (From Seed)

NNGII-SHKO-WAAS-IGE (My Fire Is Extinguished)

Images

NNGII-CHI-BAA-BII-CHI-GE (The Agony)

KII-NII-ZAAN-ZI-MI (Dangerous)

GE-ZI-BIN-SHIN (Preparation)

BAA-BID-ZAN (Humor)

ZHAM-SHIN (Dine)

NNWE-BIN (Rest)

BA-ZA-WIIN-KI-SHI-NAN (Epilogue)

About the Author

People to Thank

Kristopher Baron

Christopher Bell

Emily Bell

People of Birch Island First Nation

Linda Bruton

Renee Buczel

Fr. Michael David Chenier

Rita and the late Eric Corbiere

Steve Degoosh

Herta B. Feely

Marlene Finn-Wolfman

Spencer Fraley

Lloyd and Joyce Francis

Martha Gabow

Doug Gagnon

Danny Garceau

Donald Girard

Margaret Gordon

R.J. Green

Jonelle Hoffmann

Armand Jacko and family

Rachel Jacko

Gail Jacobs

Carri Johnson

Nancy Johnson

Beatrice and Martin Jones and family

People of King Fisher Lake

First Nation

Catherine Krall Lapointe

Dr. David Luoma

Uncle Antoine Maiangowi

Donnie Maiangowi

Laura Marjory Finn and family

Joe Masters

Beatrice Meawasige and family

Bob Meawasige

Denis Meawasige and

Claudette deVleeshschouwer

Karen Meawasige

Ken Meawasige

Kris Meawasige

Kurt and Charlotte Meawasige

Marie Meawasige

Nishin Meawasige

Shawn Meawasige

Cam and Debbie Monty

Pat Muth

Center for Native American Studies,

Northern Michigan University

Native American Student Association,

Northern Michigan University

Irvin Oshkabewisens

Jason Peltier

Brian Pitawanakwat

Carson Pitawanakwat

Dale Pitawanakwat and

Misty Wassegijig

Ed Pitawanakwat

Emmett Pitawanakwat

Melanie Pitawanakwat

Mildred Pitawanakwat and

Cho-Boy Shawana

Shauna Pitawanakwat

Victor Pitawanakwat

Selma Poulin

Steve and Teresa Ravenelli

Catherine Reader-Meawasige

Chelsea Reader-Meawasige

Aimee Reader-Sicoly

Barb Recollet

Sally and Eugene Recollet

Michelle Rehkopf and

Allan Joyner

Tim Richardson

Serpent River Chief and Council

Serpent River Fire Keepers

Serpent River Hand Drum Group

People of Serpent River First Nation

Brian Shawanda

Mike Shelafoe

Mike Sicoly

Sue Smart

Carol Strauss Sotiropoulos

Garnier Spanish

Nick Spanish

Hilda Tadgerson

Llyn and April Tadgerson

Kevin Timlin

Sara Jane Tomkins

David Wayne and

Charlene Pitawanakwat

People of Wikwemikong

Unceded Indian Reserve

Emily Williamson

David Wolfman

Any omissions or errors are strictly mine and mine alone—

Kenn Pitawanakwat

Dear Son: Shannon Kenneth Cecil Shantu Papase Meawasige; Thank you for opening up the heavens. Thank you for the tears and the laughter. May the wheel of life perpetuate love to our fellow beings. May kindness reach into dark and spring life and light and smiles. Much has happened since you went home.

Miigwetch for the teaching’s. With each breath, each encounter with another, but most of all, the walk with the self, brings a renewed kindness and love for others. I have a ways to go.

I love you son. And I miss you so much. I have tried to show the world your spirit.

I have only one request Shantu, my son. Look after your Mom and our children.

Baa-maa-pii Ka-waab-i-min—See you later, Daddy.

Photo by Karen Meawasige, May 12, 2009—It was at the top of ‘The Midnight Dome’ in Dawson City, YT. I took it because I could never have enough pictures of him.

1.

A Letter To You

As the sun rises, so shall your fire extinguish at the end of the day.

—Big Brother Nanabozho

Dear son: I wish our story be made available to us and anyone else seeking solace from the loss of their child. Help me formulate the appropriate diction, son. I ask you to look over my shoulder and suggest ideas and memories. Give me the insight and intuition to create the appropriate message.

Since you are home in the spirit world, I call upon your spirit and the spirit of our ancestors to step in and give me a nudge here and there, so I can render a humble human touch to our memories. One day, I too will no longer be of the terrestrial. That crossing over is not far away.

Through tears I attempt to write. It’s a fight. It’s a struggle. For I am an angry father softened by Nishinaabe culture, language, and tradition. I seek not malice nor retribution. Peace is my only goal. Help me, son. Send me a prayer, will you not?

My wish is to help another soul in need, another father or mother to find strength in these words. The test is for me to come with the right formula. I am not strong, but I am determined to convey the power of Nishinaabe medicine, wheel, and world view. Mine is not the final answer. Mine is only one of many. But it is true. It speaks to the truth.

When you died, I died. Father and first borne. I wish our story to be public. I yearn to express the state of our lives after you died. This is my way of apologizing and confessing things I should have said and done over thirty-eight years. I want to tell about the love that kept us together. It’s too late. Is it? Or, not?

You are home with our families in a remarkable community. In our home, our ancestors as medicine people keep you happy and busy. As busy as the day you travelled.

Back to the motherland, you laugh.

Shantu, no longer are you with us my boy. My tears soak your tracks. Out of reach for the moment, I cannot wait to enter your circle of warmth.

Perhaps, we can do several things, son. I can get stuff off my chest. And perhaps, we can help someone who has lost a child. Perhaps, we can help the grieving parent, and maybe, just maybe, we can show our lives simultaneously through the Nishinaabe lens. Who knows? Maybe we can show the dynamics of modern day grief within a Native American context.

Much has been said on grief, son, but so very much less from an indigenous perspective. Maybe we can help others traverse the dead and dying road, and again, maybe, offer some inspiration and guidance. Did we not find storytelling a fun way of telling tall tales with humor? This could be a problem. As you know, I am not, presently, good with humor, son. Especially now.

To apply humor to death is unheard of or uncomfortable to most. The grim reaper topic is abhorred. Not so in Nishinaabe country. Laughter is a medicine. It’s a healing medicine. One cannot go to a wake or funeral without witnessing or taking part in raucous laughter. To talk about death and dying is part of life.

Finally, we may offer suggestions of the practical sort for those bereaved. I choose to speak from a Nishinaabe father’s experience. Death, especially the death of a child has become taboo with Indian country. The whole idea of dying is dismissed.

This behavior does not add to healing. The bereaved is avoided, even ignored. People that may know of one’s loss suddenly lose their eyesight. They go blind. They no longer see the bereaved. Suddenly, they are transfixed on their cell phones, or something in the highway ditch. I know this because this I used to also be a part of this. I did this.

The dichotomy.

Losing you, my son, is the most devastating experience I have ever had. It’s too much for any human being. I am asking you to sit with me and help with organizing my thoughts. I am at my wits end. My mind is a jumble of mash struggling to comprehend thought and writing. The two spar to not connect. Thought and mind no longer wish to partner with my fingers. The mind tells the organism it’s too difficult a task and should be parked on the shelf. Next time, it commands. It’s too painful, it yells. Leave it alone. No one cares.

The keyboard ducks for cover. It seems to hide the keys. It’s a burden.

Unlike you, my son, English thought and expression are a second language for me. I do not think or speak in English. I take the word or audible and send to my internal processing machine. I dismantle the word, phrase or idea. Once I have it, I then piece the expressions into Nishinaabe. Once I have ascertained that I do understand the English, through the filter of language and culture, I dig for the appropriate English response.

Meanwhile, this has taken some time. Anywhere from a second to a few minutes. Sometimes I fail to understand altogether. English is a second language for me, so I ask you to give me a hand with composition and all that goes with expression. Any errors will remain solely my own.

Nishinaabe is my way of thought and speaking. Writing, as Western culture understands, is opposite of the Nishinaabe culture. Our main communique is through art and storytelling. It’s through the spoken word. Oratory is my canoe or lodge. This is my comfort zone.

I am not a great orator, as I get nervous and get tongue-tied, and in the process I lose my train of thought. Sometimes forever. So, perhaps, through the inherent cultural process of; thought diffusion and creation, I can create a workable word order, in the comfort of my space and environment, free from prying eyes. The isolated process might deliver better creative etchings.

2.

NNA-NA-BOZHO

Nanabozho wanted to communicate something. Someone whispered in his ear just as he was waking up this morning.

Tell them this, the voice went on.

Tell them to etch a code on birch bark, the voice went on. I will tell you exactly where and on which bark.

Nanabozho scratched his ears, rubbed his eyes, listed to one side, and let one go.

Of course, Nanabozho was not a stranger to trees, birds, mosquitos or his butt talking to him at the most inconvenient times. The language they communicated was universal. Everyone knew the other’s language. It was all one.

Nanabozho took pride in his self-reliance. He was proud to create his own meals. He especially liked his homemade hamburgers he heaved and fashioned into juicy morsels. His hamburgers were the talk of the bush. He had to keep an eye on them as others took great mischief in stealing his culinary secretions. Nanabozho recalled the last time that darn buzzard landed on his marinating stool. The rabbits on the other side of the sun need you. They are burning up. They sent me here to get you.

With a start, Nanabozho sprang into action. (A super hero would have been proud of his athleticism.) Through the cedar stand, through the poplar and birch saplings, and through the briars on the side of the hill, and up towards the white peaks, Nanabozho wasted no time.

The feet bled from the jagged rocks, the burrs stabbed, the thorn bushes just about poked out the eyes, and the skunk blasted Nanabozho with a nauseating rip that choked his throat and made his eyes drip so much he could not see, and he just about lost consciousness when he ran smack dab into a towering ankle of a man who did not even notice the insect-sized Nanabozho bounce off his moccasin. Collecting himself, Nanabozho jumped up but tripped over his crossed legs. Down he went into a knife-sharp piece of rock that looked like it was there just for him. Undeterred, he made one more leap and was delighted to see the gleaming waters off in the north.

Almost there, he assured himself.

Not long after his brush with the rest of the forest of trees and plant life, and assorted cousins scampering for safety, he reached the rabbit lodge, panting.

Okay. Who is attacking you? What is going on? Where are they? he blurted all at once.

The rabbits looked up at Nanabozho and then got a whiff of him.

"Whew! They shouted. And as quick as a hop they were out the door.

What?! beckoned Nanabozho. What? Wait, he beckoned again.

Wiinaage told me you guys were in trouble and that I should rush here and save you. And defend you, he lobbied. So I rushed off as fast and as soon as I heard.

What? You idiot! Responded the bunnies, from the other side of the lodge wall. Nothing’s wrong with us here. In fact, we’re getting ready to tell a story about midday and how he came to have his name, Aapto-gii-zhig, they went on. And don’t come here, they shouted. You stink!

Mooitch! Nanabozho realized he had been tricked. As fast as he could he returned to his lodge beside the meadow. He was now alarmed about his meal. And for good reason, his food would have been devoured. He was so mad at himself that he tried to leap up towards the tallest crags and catch that acrimonious flock licking their beaks of any remaining morsels of Nanabozho’s hamburger patties.

I’ll show them, he promised. Off in the distance he could see the buzzards lick and peck each other free of any remaining morsels as they rolled over hollering and laughing so much they almost fell off their perch. They had scored a free meal.

It was a good thing Nanabozho was a glutton. He had plenty of hamburger available for another meal. With a squat, he heaved and out came brand new mix ready for patty making.

"Satisfied, he had the final laugh, he proceeded to make big, thick, oozy, hamburgers. The etchings would have to wait until his lunch was done.

Thus the birch bark scrolls and petroglyphs from the Meso-American pyramids. These carvings and etchings were so sophisticated, no one could understand their meanings. You know why, son? Because they are not Nanabozho and of this world. Humor is not part of their composition. So they destroyed them. The darn Franciscans were the first in Meso-America. In our part of the country, it was the Jesuits, Recollets and others. But we adapted. I have adapted. Look at me, I now use the immigrant’s script and language.

The immigrant language is not the one I was born and raised with. Mine was the Odawa, Pottawatomi, and Ojibwe language and culture and ceremony. This is where I speak from, son. I regret not raising you and helping you with the cultural construct that comes with Nishinaabe. It is the language and people I evolved with. Much of my words will lack the punch of the English first speaker, and this includes our people. I am actually assuming someone will read our story, son. I may lack the fluidness in reaching the Western-trained audience and by circumstance, I know without a doubt miss the indigenous, who are the focus group. So, as I write with this alien language and medium, I again ask for your input. Help me with my thoughts. Who knows, sonny? Maybe I will lose the First people and the Westerner. I do not know.

Grief is grief. In any culture. However, Nishinaabe cultural grief and its manifestations are another story. Our story will tell of the spirit, spirits, and the spiritual. Not the religious. We leave that to the theologians. Again, the spirit is universal across humanity. Whether one chooses to acknowledge it or not is of their own will. For us, we will jump back and forth between the dead and the living, the visible and invisible across the Nishinaabe realm as perceived by a father and son within our tragic lens.

Virtually extinct is indigenous literature about death and dying and the spiritual Nishinaabe experience. Much exists for the mainstream. I found only one cursory academic paper online when I was scouring for help within the initial few moments, as it were, soon after the crushing news of your death tore into my soul. So desperate I was for any help, grasping at anything that might help me breathe and navigate through the conscious nightmare that took hold and has never let go, son.

It’s my plan to tell my story through our experience, son. Maybe we can reach one or two individuals who may need a hand in carrying them through similar ordeals. Again,